


drink iced coffee *panic attack*

by Anonymous



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26815126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: George suffers a sudden panic attack while streaming. Dream, along with Sapnap and Bad, comforts him.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 421





	1. well shit

**Author's Note:**

> hi important note: I used to be adamantly against RPF but recently i fell really deep into this then got this idea for a fic (that is mostly venting/projecting tbh lmao) that wouldn't leave me so here i am. 
> 
> however i do still believe RPF can be weird and intrusive so this is based on their personas, i dont actually ship them (but if u do please do so respectfully), and if any of them express discomfort i will immediately take it down!
> 
> that said, here’s my first fanfic in months; enjoy.
> 
> oh also tw panic attacks, pls dont read if you think you'll be triggered, stay safe<3

George couldn’t recall how it began. He remembered adjusting his camera, starting the stream, greeting the chat, and chatting with Dream as Sapnap and Bad logged into the server. He went through the same motions as any other stream - so he had no reason to suspect anything would go wrong, right? Wrong.

So very wrong.

He could remember the sound of Dream laughing at some lame joke Sapnap had just made; he even remembered himself laughing along as well when things began to go wrong. One moment he was chuckling and the very next his laugh was suddenly caught in his throat as an unprompted panic bubbled through.

It began so suddenly he didn’t have time to react before it set in. The rest of the group were still occupied with their laughter; they failed to notice his input fade out as he placed a hand on his chest in a futile attempt to stop it from tightening.

He felt the weight on his chest grow heavier with every passing second whilst the noise from his headphones drifted in and out of his head. He couldn’t pay attention. How could he? All he could hear was the sound of his own blood rushing; all he could feel was the cold that was beginning to seep into his bones.

With his hand still on his chest, he noticed his heart racing as though it was attempting to beat the record for a speedrun. It was an unholy combination of feelings: the heaviness of his chest, the faintness of his head and senses, the speed of his heart, the slowness of his mind and lungs.

And, oh god, he couldn’t breathe. The air surrounding him swirled like the haze of his brain and none of it would enter the lungs of his still body.

Focus, he told himself, just- just breathe in. Shakily, he attempted to follow his own instructions: one breath in, one breath out, another in, another out, anotherinanotheroutanotherinanotherout- The air stabbed his chest as it entered and left with another piercing blow but he couldn’t get himself to stop. He felt the hot tears on his cheeks mock the coldness of his chest.

“...eorge?” 

Amidst his panic he vaguely heard someone call his name.

“George!” A different voice this time. “George.” And another.

“George,” the first one repeated, “Can you focus on my voice?”

He distantly felt himself nod through the blinding fog of his head.

“Ok,” the voice continued with uncertainty, “can you tell me five things that you can see?”

See? With your eyes, George, he told himself, and remembered he was in his room. Quickly, he glanced around for things.

“Um,” he heard himself say through sharp breaths, “erh- the wall.” 

“Good, good,” the voice replied - Dream, somewhere in his mind supplied, “Four more things?”

“A clock. Um, a pen… my computer, and the screen.”

“Good,” he breathed, “Great. Ok, four things you can feel?”

Feel? He could feel his heart racing, his chest threatening to collapse under the pressure, and his lungs- No, he shook himself to focus and respond.

“I feel… the desk. And, um, my headphones. My chair, and… the floor.”

“You’re doing great, George,” another voice - Sapnap. “Three things you can hear.”

“You,” he responded immediately, “Dream was there, and… Bad?”

“That’s right!” He chimed in promptly, “How about two things you can smell?”

“Guys,” he replied shakily, “I appreciate it, truly, but you don’t have to keep going. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Dream asked, voice still filled with concern.

George actually wasn’t sure. His mind was still racing with anxiety but he no longer felt like he was on the edge of death, which he would take to mean he was doing a hell of a lot better. Taking another breath, he responded “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure. I’m fine.”

He heard the group release a collective sigh of relief.

“Are you definitely sure?” Bad asked this time.

“Yes.”

This time it was his turn to let out a breath as his breathing gradually returned to normal and his heart slowed to an acceptable rate.

“Dude!” Sapnap cried, “You scared us!”

“Sapnap,” Bad chided, “Give the boy a break, he just had a- a- panic attack…” he trailed off unsure.

George sighed again. “Yeah,” he answered slowly, already bracing himself for questions - or worse, another, “it was a panic attack.”

Fortunately, however, nobody asked any questions about it and he let himself calm down.

“You’re alright now, though, right?” Dream asked.

“I think so, yeah.”

“Good,” he replied, “Good... But Sapnap was right: that was terrifying.”

George laughed lightly, “I thought I was dying.”

“We thought you were dying.”

“Oh,” he replied weakly, “Sorry about that.”

“George,” Dream said sincerely, “It’s no problem, really. We just care about you and hate to see that shit happen.”

He smiled to himself and gave a small ‘thanks’ in return - to which he was returned with an earnest ‘you’re welcome’.

He soon lied back into the chair, letting his eyes rest and attempt to return to calm. He let the air slowly flow in and out of his lungs as his heart rate relaxed. He went to take his headphones off but was suddenly reminded of the reason he had them on in the first place.

Eyes flying open, he glanced at his monitor: he was still streaming.

In a rapid and panicked click, he immediately shut it off, left teamspeak, and stood back from the computer.

Panic began to rise again. 

Shit.


	2. um im not gonna get up and bash him like everybody else but he needs a lot of psychological evaluations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> following the events of the stream, george checks out twitter and meanwhile feels himself fade away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg i forgot how much kudos feed my soul- i literally got one (1) kudos and immediately got to work on the next chapter hsbjdfkjs (sorry it's kinda rushed!)
> 
> also, the moods of these chapters are pretty much a reflection of my own - i wrote the first one whilst panicking over nothing, and this one im feeling kinda lethargic so yea

George sat back with his face hidden in his hands. The stream, fortunately, was now definitely ended but he was still reeling in from the realisation that he had just had a full on panic attack on stream.

Fuck, he thought. This was bad.

Upon the realisation, he very narrowly avoided facing another panic attack but he still couldn’t believe it.

A panic attack. On stream.

It was bad enough his friends had to witness him in such a state but thousands of people? The mere thought of it was enough to send him spiralling again.

“Fuck!” he cried and finally released his head from his hands as he stared at the ceiling in contemplation.

Just his luck. He didn’t know what to think; part of his brain wanted to panic further and another wanted to simply wallow in his misfortune.

Although it appeared that his brain reached a compromise and he was currently sitting in an excruciating state of complete anxiety and misery. His head was swimming with constant thoughts of what his friends thought, what his viewers thought, what he was going to do, how he would come back from this, how he would explain it….

His mind was growing heavier with thoughts and all he wanted at the moment was to sleep and forget the day’s events even happened.

Groaning, he flopped back onto the bed and feebly attempted to fend off another wave of panic as he drifted off. Tomorrow, he would face everything. Tomorrow…

\--

George awoke with an immediate sense of stress. He felt groggy but managed to get out of bed nonetheless and sluggishly go about his usual motions before finally checking his phone.

Sucking in a breath, he turned it on and braced himself: there were a few texts from Dream asking how he was and if he was doing better - at which he smiled but ultimately swiped away, not in the mood to talk to anybody. He scrolled through the notifications further and found two more from Bad and Sapnap, also checking in on him and wishing him well.

He smiled tightly, glad to have such friends, and also thankful that they weren’t asking too many questions about the panic attack itself because he didn’t know if he could handle talking about it.

His smile, however, slowly dropped as he noticed a text from Sapnap.

**Dude, just letting you know, be careful of twitter. It’s kind of a shitshow rn**

George frowned. He mused to himself that technically nothing new was there since Twitter was always a bit of a shitshow, but curiosity quickly got the better of him and he opened the app.

Heeding Sapnap’s words, he cautiously scrolled through the timeline: although, there didn’t appear to be anything out of the ordinary. That was, until he decided to check the explore.

#GeorgeNotFound was trending.

Well, he thought, that was new. He hesitated momentarily, his thumb hovering over the screen, wondering if he should see what was making him trend. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind idly reminded him that it was most certainly due to what had just happened the previous day, but he shook it away and decided to press it nonetheless.

Carefully, he scrolled through it and caught bits and pieces of tweets.

_“sending my love and support to george <3 panic attacks are a bitch”_

Well, that was surprisingly kind. His lips turned up slightly upon reading the tweet, but decided not to like it so as not to alert anybody he was on Twitter; heaven knows the last thing he wanted was to be forced to talk about what happened.

_“guys, its really rude to circulate vids of george’s panic attack:/”_

____

____

Oh. So people were doing that. Deep down, he knew not to be surprised, considering how frequently his streams were clipped and that this was a moment people would definitely talk about and consequently spread but he felt anxiety within him begin to rise.

Against his better judgement, he continued scrolling.

_“here’s the vid of georgenotfound’s panic attack since no one else will upload it [...]”_

George winced and swiftly brushed past the clip of his own pale face.

Shit, he thought. Well, it was an unfortunately definite confirmation that people were indeed sharing the clip around.

Something within him wanted to scream with outrage at the flagrant violation of his privacy but he remained feeling empty - after all, he thought bitterly, it was a public stream.

He soon found himself within the responses, which was generally filled with “thank you”s and “poor gogy”s which he supposed he appreciated but he couldn’t bite down all the thoughts within him still screaming at the fact people were sharing and watching the clip. 

Not just the thousands of people on stream but now also thousands upon thousands on Twitter and god knows what else.

Somewhere along the line, where he had stopped paying attention to his breathing, its pace picked up and he felt his chest tighten again. Ignoring the growing discomfort, he continued.

_“anyone else think its kinda shitty george hid anxiety or whatever??”_

He frowned. He had never even considered sharing his struggles so publicly, nor thought that his audience would be upset but here he was, faced with the unsettling reality. Without another thought, he looked into the responses.

_“yeah i feel like this wouldn’t have happened if he was more open"_

George’s frown deepened. The back of his mind couldn’t help but somewhat agree; it was filled with the thoughts of maybe if he had done something different, maybe if he had done something right, maybe, just maybe… this wouldn’t have happened.

_“lol as if he could control when to have a panic attack?”_

He hummed along bittersweetly, glad to see someone somewhat defending him, but also couldn’t help but to blame himself for what happened. Maybe he really could have prevented everything. The pressure on his chest grew heavier like his thoughts but he attempted to shake it away as he continued to ponder.

He began to berate himself further as he looked through more criticisms of his situation. _‘weak’ ‘could’ve been handled a lot better’ ‘should have said something sooner’ ‘what’s wrong with you’_

Where the stream of tweets ended and his own thoughts began, he could no longer tell.

He looked up at the time. 12:09pm. Oh, he thought, so he had been on the app for at least an hour - great. He fell back onto the bed numbly, staring at the ceiling again, discarded phone in hand.

He allowed wave and wave of panic to slowly creep up and crash onto his tide of anxieties, only to fade away and repeat the process again. And again. He felt like he was drowning: not being able to breathe or feel his chest, yet couldn’t find the strength to do anything about it. It was easier to let it consume him.

Not knowing how long he had been lying there, he idly looked to his phone again: 1:38pm, along with another text from Dream checking up on him. Ah. So he had been at it for a little while…

He briefly considered responding to Dream so as not to concern him but ended up swiping it away, again, still not in any mood to talk. He groaned in guilt into his pillow as he knew he should reply but urge after urge fell into his head, compelling him to continue lying down, doing nothing.

So lying down, doing nothing, he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like this is really ooc ah - prolly because it's just generic Depressed thoughts but hm i think i'll work on that.
> 
> also wow thanks for the kind response! this is actually my first multi chapter fic and i have no clue where i'm going with it but hopefully i'll figure something out. i'm possibly thinking some of dream's pov?..


	3. hello again friend of a friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> following his panic attack on stream, george disappears from the internet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> meta fic is meta lol

“No,” Dream sighed at yet another donation that rolled in, “I still do not know where George is.”

Nobody did. It had been close to four months since George’s panic attack and in the time that followed, he had seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth. 

Immediately following the initial incident, there was an explosion of reactions and comments across social media, in concern and confusion alike. Likewise, his friends had their own fair share of questions but politely disregarded them in favour of sending support. So within the day, they took their time to check up on him and see how he was doing - all to no response.

#GeorgeNotFound continued to trend on Twitter for the following days; at first full of questions revolving around his stream but as the days began to pass and no answers came, a new trouble appeared to arise.

George was completely inactive. Question after question continued to pour in, increasingly wondering where he was and how he was doing, yet still no response came. Gradually, the internet grew frantic and following the first week of his absence, true anxiety began to set in.

People here and there attempted to maintain level headedness, theorising that he simply needed time, but with every subsequent day, the anxiety merely grew to rival the silence. 

But with no apparent George to answer, fans had no other option than to turn to his friends; Dream, Sapnap, Bad, Tommy, Wilbur - anybody and everybody George had ever interacted with were faced with a constant stream of inquiries they had no way of answering.

Unsurprisingly, Dream was worst affected by it. His social media mentions completely erupted every time he opened any app. He understood why people turned to him - he was one of the last to speak to him, and the first to contact him - but having been met with the very same silence, he had no satisfying answers to give.

After the first week or so of constant notifications, he considered his own break from social media however somewhere along the lines he had made checking George’s accounts a daily habit. A part of him knew it would bear no fruits, a part that - against his better will - slowly built up when George’s account remained stagnant, but he couldn’t help but do it nonetheless; it was the smallest bit of hope for the man he let himself constantly hang onto.

One that remained vital as he conceded and revealed he too had no clue as to George’s whereabouts.

 _Sorry_ , his tweet that came no less than a week following his disappearance, _but I’m afraid I have no clue as to where George is or how he’s doing. I’ve tried contacting him (and still am) but I’m yet to receive any kind of response. I’m sure if he does return he’ll have his explanations but for now please just keep him in your thoughts and respect his privacy and decision._

He had internally cringed reading over the “ _keep him in your thoughts_ ” line, realising it resembled that of what people said about missing-presumed-dead people, but shook that daunting possibility from his head and posted it all the same.

However, to the chagrin of his notifications, the tweet seemed to only multiply questions tenfold. Many people had assumed George was simply inactive on the internet yet still in contact with his friends - it was a comforting thought; to believe he was at the very least still there. But Dream’s tweet destroyed all hope of that and a new wave of despair for the missing man permeated the internet.

A new hashtag, #wheresgogy, arose quickly. It trended on and off for a few days as the non-minecraft manhunt continued but still no answer or hint of any sort came. People, of course, had their own theories as to where he was: ranging from the reasonable assumption he was taking a break following his panic attack, to inane and complex conspiracies concerning alternate realities and kidnappings. Unrealistic though they were, they provided a small necessary piece of entertainment throughout the distressing situation.  
The search for him lasted in its peak intensity for several weeks with admirable stamina, but only so many theories and hashtags with no results could be made.

So overtime, slowly and gradually, people had grown used to his absence. The occasional theory video still cropped up and the tweets and mentions never truly stopped, but the franticness had mostly eased over.

A stillness akin to peace settled over the internet (or, at least, as close to peaceful as the internet could be) and the new routine of watching streams and videos without George had set in. His friends at first had queried whether they should - or could - even continue without him. For the first week or so there were very few new Minecraft videos or live streams, to the further dejection of the internet, in respect of George, but once it became clear he was truly absent, they had no choice to carry on. There was a clear pang in the hearts of viewers when Dream made his first stream without George (the chat and donations of which were predictably filled with more messages), but with each video and stream that followed, the pain dulled to a constant sting.

So such a peace with that ever present sting became the norm, and people carried on.

Or at least that’s how it was, until one fateful day...

“ _Stream on Twitch tomorrow, 12pm GMT,_ ” came George’s tweet, “ _I’ll answer questions there._ ”

The previous stillness of the internet quickly turned to silence - before it promptly exploded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok WHOA another chapter? frankly i didn't think i would ever continue this because i didn't know what to do with it and i wasn't into writing or mcyt anymore. BUT in the past like week i got into it again and thought eh i know what it's like for a fic to be discontinued and it sucks (also it's my most popular fic wow) so my goal is hopefully to finish it.
> 
> i have a vague idea on where i want it to go (i'm thinking i'll stop after 4 or 5 chapters) but please if you have any ideas or just prompts you want written let me know!
> 
> also ugh sorry this chapter kinda sucks and the pacing/continuity/direction is weird i wrote it in a day on very little inspo://

**Author's Note:**

> should i write more?-
> 
> still cannot believe im writing rpf about mcyters but here we are


End file.
